[NEWS]


SAFETY, RESPECT AND TAKING CARE OF EQUIPMENT


By Greg Everett


The way you treat the equipment in your gym says a lot about you, not just as an athlete, but as a person. Whether or not you know it, you’re being judged, and if it’s by me, it’s probably harshly. For those of you with good hearts, but not enough experience to know proper facility etiquette yet, here is a handy list of rules to help you take care of the gym you train in, show the people around you that you care and be safe.


Back Away from the Squat Rack If you’re doing an exercise using a squat rack, whether it’s squatting, jerking or anything else, take more than half a step back from the squat rack. It’s not a lot of effort, and if you miss a lift, you won’t drop the bar on the base of the rack. When bumper plates land on racks, it will often chip pieces of the rubber away and the rack can be dented or certain plastic parts broken completely (for some perspective,


the Werksan bumper


plates we use at Catalyst Athletics range in price from $210/pair for 10kg to $410/pair for 25kg and Werksan squat racks are $565 each). You also won’t have a near-death ex- perience getting yourself tangled up with the bar and rack.


If You’re Sketchy, Use Collars We weightlifters often train without collars on our bars. That’s because we lift them straight up and put them straight down, so there’s no sliding of plates on the bar. If you’re new, unsure or otherwise sketchy when you lift, use collars. Weights sliding on your bar can be disastrous—the shift in weight magnifies whatever imbalance caused it, and your attempts to correct are usually too little, too much or too late. Spare us all the fear of seeing you die and protect the rest of us and the equipment by keep- ing your weights secured safely on your bar with collars. If you don’t know whether or not you’re a sketchy lifter, you’re a sketchy lifter.


Contain Yourself in Your Lifting Area This is usually a platform, but it may also just be a designated space on rubber floor-


ing. If you’re fighting a bad lift, and the only way you think you can save it is to chase the bar off your platform or outside of your lift- ing area, it’s already over—drop the bar (under your control) inside your lifting area. Not only are you putting yourself at risk, but you’re putting the people around you in danger, and that’s not cool. If you want to do irresponsible things that risk injury to your person that don’t threaten the safety of others, knock yourself out. Do not do those things in a public place where you’re around people who don’t share your lack of regard for personal physical wellbeing. If you’re not sure you can contain yourself in your desig- nated lifting area, you shouldn’t be doing whatever you’re doing. Just because some- one or something wasn’t somewhere before your lift went sideways doesn’t mean that re- mains true afterward—someone may have wandered into the space you think is clear, and may very well not be paying attention to you, operating under the assumption that you know what you’re doing and you’re not going to be running around the gym throw- ing barbells.


Keep Your Lifting Area Clear Whatever your lifting area is, whether a plat- form or a nice cozy spot of floor, keep it clear. Don’t leave change plates, collars, bumper plates, clothing, training journals or ANY- THING on the floor in that lifting area. Hard, solid objects are things that a dropped bar can bounce unpredictably off of, causing a loaded bar to collide with you or someone near, or go crashing into other equipment. Soft items (clothing, towels, journals) are trip hazards, whether during a lift or not.


Don’t Use Nice Bars in the Rack Quality weightlifting barbells are expensive. The Werksan barbells our weightlifting team trains on are $900 each. These bars need to perform very well and safely, and in order to do that, they need to be taken care of (like everything else, but especially these). Us- ing barbells in squat or power racks, even when lifters are careful, over time results in


the knurling being worn down where the bar rests in the rack. This means less secure grips on the bar during any exercise with a snatch-width grip, and this is not a problem that can be fixed. Use less expensive bars when doing rack work—especially squats.


Don’t Spin or Slide Bars in Racks Related to the previous rule, when using a bar in a rack—whether it’s the best or worst bar in the gym—don’t spin it or slide it side to side in the cradles. If the bar is off center in the rack, it’s your own fault for putting it back that way after your last set (see the next rule). If you got it in there that way, you can get it out from the same place—there’s no way the bar is so off-center that you can’t possibly lift it out of the rack. And I promise that the entire circumference of the barbell is the same—don’t spin it looking for some magical alignment of the surface with your hand. If you spin the bar in the rack when setting your rack position for jerks or press- ing exercises, stop. Get your grip set loosely and let your hands spin around the bar as needed to get into position. You don’t need to be choking the bar to death before you’re even in position to lift it out of the rack. This sliding and spinning wears down the knurl- ing and ruins the barbell, and adding insult to injury, is completely unnecessary.


Set Your Bar Down in the Rack When using a barbell from a squat rack, re- place it under control when you’re finished with your set. Don’t throw the bar back into the rack, or slam it down into the cradles. This is either a sign of laziness, a lack of re- spect for the gym or attention-seeking. If your set was so incredibly difficult that you can’t possibly set the barbell down into the rack the way you should, you shouldn’t be putting it into the rack—drop it on the plat- form like you would a snatch or clean & jerk. Even after the most difficult set of squats, it’s not hard to lower a bar a few inches down into a rack until you feel it supported and can move out from under it. Aside from tak- ing care of the equipment (both the bar and


WEIGHTLIFTING.TEAMUSA.ORG << 9


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16